Iggi-giggah kamashlamanayay

Quit dissing my native bro's...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I didn't take any pictures today. Silly me. We had dinner at my house, Grandma McCubbins house. Mom, Dad, Kammi, Daniel, Lisa, Mike, Court and Dreamie, Lisa invited the Nujoy's (they owned the Thai resteraunt) and I invited Heather Gaines who brought John Whiteside. It was a lovely celebration, with much food and grandma's pumpkin pie!!! Oh, yummee!

I do want to say how thankful I am for my family, my friends, my life. I am so blessed! Love you all!

HA-HA-HA!!!

Daniel asked grandma McCubbins if he could do something for her. She said that he could put a couple bags of rock salt pellets into the water machine to soften the water. She went down to wash some towels, and this is what she found...



Dreamie wanted to go skiing...in my boots!

Happy 80th Grandma Carlson

Grandma's Carlson and McCubbins...I'm so lucky!


Uncle Bill, Grandpa Carlson (his little joke...he says "Grandma is eighty and I'll be eighty too (two)" HA! funny guy)!


Daddy and I


My grandmothers, Mccubbins, Wooster(grammy, Charise's grandma whom I have adopted), and Carlson. This was too cute to pass up.

Back home in Alaska

I got back to Alaska on Nov 4th. Charise picked me up in Anchorage and we stayed up at Alyeska where she was having a conference.


Another pic of the mt's of Girdwood.


Brandi's birthday party. Me, Kristin, Brandi, Heather, and Carolyn. All girls from work.


Mountains overlooking Cook Inlet.


The moose are everywhere!

College friends and roomies

I joined my roommate, Heidi while she was teaching a Tahitian dance class.


I spent Halloween with Sara and Tyson, and Heidi and Pona. Sara, Tyson and I are obviously pirates, so we made the children sing "A pirates life for me" before they could have any candy. I also went to my friend, Amber's for a "The Office" party, based on the TV series The Office. They named me the purse sales-lady.


I met up with Beth and Kristy, girls from my last ward. I was Beth's visiting teacher.

Back in Utah

I went to my good friend, Amber's choir concert at U of U...so great! She's on my left, and her friend Amber on my rt.


I got to have lunch with my mission trainer Alison 'Madsen' Johnson. We had such a good time. She and her husband, Zack took me to dinner the night before I left. They are so great!


I also got to see another of my companions, Elisa Rasmussen (can't remember her new last name). She is due to have a baby any day now!


Kamilla's Jake picked me up from the airport when I arrived from Germany, but I didn't get to see Kam. I visited James, Mel and baby Paige, Andy and Stacy, also had dinner with Woody, Melissa and their gang, and Aaron and Mary. I tried getting ahold of Curtis and Becky, and Kimmee, but was not fortunate to get to see them...next time!

Arizona adventures

Anna, Matthew and I took a road trip to Arizona to see Hans, Holly and Smootchalicious Kelsie! We also got to celebrate Holly's birthday while there!


Dramatic vistas call for dramatic moments.


Holly, Anna, Kelsie and I went swimming while the boys played raquetball. You should always wear your sun bonnet when going to the pool. Oh, she's so yummy!


Kelsie read a story with Aunt Anna.


With Hans, Holly and baby Kelsie. So fun to visit! Thanks!

Rexburgious

Kierstin, Becca, Heidi and I went out for Happy Hour at Applebees. De-light! I went with them to church on Sunday and realized I was about 4 years older than the oldest person in their ward. Ah, their such precious young-ones. In RS they were saying "maybe some of you will go on missions...(check, been back from mine for 5 years) and in a few years when you graduate...(mmm, yes, check, check). I'm to thankful that I'm here and not there!
Thanks so much girls for the fun times!


We had Sunday breakfast with Scott and Estelle. Scott fell asleep, but Kierstin, oh she's so devout!


I got to see the Kumfermans...Love them!!! Sad not to have a picture of the whole family, but here I am with my cousins, Elise and Rachel...Diva's!!!

Vernal

I went to visit Anna snd Matthew in Vernal for a few days. It was a lovely visit. We went to the driving range and hit a few balls around (my first time). We got an impromptu lesson from John. With his left arm in a sling, he proceeded to give us a lesson on how to hold the club and swing. It was very informative...and funny.


Yeah, Anna and I are going on the next PGA tour...


Matthew ain't got nothin' on us! So what if he can hit the ball...


Anna did my hair...silver foil is all the rage now!!! Suh-weeeet! While she was doing it we watched Braveheart... I thought I had seen it before, but I found out that I had only seen about a half an hour of it...wow, so good! Thanks so much for letting me visit!!!

Going away party for Millie

I had a going away party for myself, attended by my good friends, starting at the front of the table working around left: Sophia from Austria, Louisa from Berlin, Laura (the new au pair) from Utah, Koko from Utah, Olivia from Australia, Evalynn from Tanzania, Francesca from Rome, Martin from Germany, Martina from Germany, Tamer from Egypt, and Patrick from Austria. It was so great to have everyone there!!


Olivia, Laura and Sophia.


Eva gave me this beautiful wall hanging from Tanzania as a going away present...we had to pose.


Loves first kiss...


My German boyfriend. Hot isn't he?! Too bad he has a smoking problem, and I feel like a giant compared to him, but who could resist eyes like that? And what a physique!!!

Merl/Millie Family pics

Millie, Nicholas and Phineas in the Rheinaue


Me, Koko, Patrick, Nicholas and Phineas


Me and Sophia Shmidl...she is fabulous. Look at her scarf, how could she not be?


The Rheinaue at dusk...stunning

Fahren in die Schweiz

I went on a typical American tour...see as much as you can in a really short period of time. I left Sunday from Bonn, and returned on Thursday. Sunday-Tues morning in Villeret with Sabine, Tues-Wed with Elizabeth at Andrea's, Wed-Thurs morn in Klosters/Monbiel/Davos with Elizabeth at Hitch and Dominiques!!!

I started by taking an unnecessary, but beautiful trip up to Cologne, and got a picture by the Kolner Dom, the biggest cathedral in Europe. Very gothic, very impressive.



My discounted train ticket got me from Cologne to Zurich, but as I was on the train, I realized it would stop in Basel, which cut off about 3 hours of travel time! I stopped in Basel, found the church (I wanted to watch conference), but no one was there. I took a picture in front of the train station. The last time I was here in Basel was for Fasnacht in February 2004 with my friends HP and Christina.


I called Sabine on my train from Basel to Villeret who said to get off at the next stop, she had some friends passing through who would pick me up and bring me up into the mountains where she was for her friend, Olivier's birthday dinner. We all went out for a lovely walk in the mountain pastures. Beautiful. This is me with Sabine.


We went back to the cabin and had Raclette for Olivier's b-day. Raclette is basically taking little individual pans, putting a slice of cheese on it and putting it over a fire to melt the cheese, you then scrape it off onto your plate, grind some pepper over it, and eat it with potatoes. Wow, it was delicious! Very Swiss, but I had never eaten it! Olivier is the only other one looking at the camera.


I met Sabine in Davos as well. She was studying massage therapy. We had a great time while I was there, I only wish it could have been longer. She had to go back to school Tuesday morning anyway. She is now studying Physical Therapy.

Hang-gliding

"Hey Millie, my friend, Olivier just called and wants to go hang-gliding. He has a double-wing, do you want to go with him?"
Sabine flies regularly on her own, so when we went up the mountain they were so chill about it, and it all happened so quickly, I really didn't have a lot of time to freak myself out.
It was soooo awesome!! I highly recommend hang-gliding!

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So, I was a little nervous at first, we were setting it up here, Olivier let me help, fortunately, he went back over everything to make sure it was all secure.


We stood in this "ready" position for a couple of minutes, waiting for the wind to be right.


We got strapped into our harnesses that hang you from the Delta (the wing). Olivier said "are you ready? 3,2,1 go" then we started running down the mountain.

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We ran and ran, then kept going straight, we ran out into the air instead of down the mountain. It was so incredible! We flew for about 30 minutes then landed in a nearby field. The Delta had wheels so we just stayed suspended face down, legs and feet dragging a bit, but, rolled smoothly to a stop. Amazing, and so fun!!


Sabine and her family are so great. Her parents, Stephan and Ursula made a dinner for me. Stephan is a chef, so it was delicious! Her mother, Ursula, is also a great cook. She kept offering to make me crepes, Citronella tee (which was quite tasty), and Apfel Strudel with vanilla sauce. They were such great hosts.

Basel with Andrea

I met up with Elizabeth Keeler. Funny story. So, Elizabeth's sister, Becca was living up in Alaska while her husband worked as an intern at the clinic with me. They later found out that Becca and Elizabeth's grandparents served a mission with Grandma and Grandpa Carlson! It's a small world after all...(to be sung while moving your hands and head in stiff, mechanicalized motions). Becca's mom gave Elizabeth my e-mail address along with some for my cousins. Elizabeth wrote to all of us and said that she is living in southern Germany and if we are ever traveling in Europe, to look her up. Very cool, I thought. I wrote her and said, hey, I'm living in Germany too, we should meet up. I'm going to Switzerland next week, do you want to join me? So she did! She is very cool, and if any of you are over here, you should meet up with her. Go visit her in Konstanz!

Elizabeth and myself in front of the Rathaus (government house) in Basel.


We met up with my friend, Andrea. I know Andrea from Davos. She was so great! We took our things to her house then went out touring Basel for the afternoon. We went back to Andrea's house and made cheese fondue and pumpkin-chestnut soup, and salad. So good, but ugh, we ate so much!


Andrea and Elizabeth tried Heisse Maroni, Roasted Chestnuts. Quite delicious. =)

Andrea made some beds out of sheets, blankets, towels, whatever she could find. So nice of her to have us there at her house!